


Kill them all

by jyalika



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabble Format, Gen, HP universe will be totally butchered I just know it, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Male Slash, Reincarnation, Some OOC, disturbing kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 7,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jyalika/pseuds/jyalika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...where instead of Harry Potter they get Eren Jaeger. Reincarnation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hello World

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third week of my ereri marathon. I can't sleep, I can't eat, Eren/Levi goodness is leaking out of my brain and corrupting everything I touch. Even Harry Potter. *sobs* So I decided to stop suffering alone and to spread the infection!  
> Also if you see any mistakes, point them out to me, k? English is not my first language.

Severus Snape thinks he knows exactly what Harry Potter will be like. He thinks the boy will be tall for his age, with that damnable Potter signature hair, arrogant gait and confident look in his - Lily's - eyes.

 

"These are not Lily's eyes," is his first thought upon laying his gaze on the boy for the first time.

 

It's not just the color that's wrong (turquoise, when it should have been emerald green), but also the expression. The boy's eyes, unexpectedly not hidden behind some hideous glasses, are old and tired, and full of blistering, boiling, _inhuman_ rage.

 

"This is not Harry Potter," is his second thought. Because Harry Potter was supposed to have a black untamable mop of hair on his head (just like his father’s), where _this_ boy's hair is while also messy, brown. Harry Potter was supposed to have a clearly defined scar on his forehead, whereas _this_ boy's scar is old and thin and barely visible. Harry Potter was supposed to be arrogant, naive and full of shit, where _this_ boy is tightly restrained ball of barely contained fury and almost _alien_ intelligence.

 

Because you shouldn't feel, as if you're staring at the deadly predator, ready to spring and consume you whole, while looking at an eleven year old child. You just _shouldn't_.

 

Severus Snape feels cold sweet forming between his shoulder blades. He doesn't understand how all these other children could just stand next to him so calmly, how other staff members could watch the boy with easily detectable curiosity and surprise, but without any hint wariness.

 

But Severus always did have excellent instincts.

 

He just doesn’t always listen to them. The only thing he knows right then is that something somewhere had gone terribly, horribly wrong, and automatically touches the child’s mind with legimency, and-

 

(-Petunia’s shrill screams-broken body of his uncle laying on a sidewalk-satisfying crunch of human bones between his teeth-jaws open wide-the hot rush of blood down his throat-the cupboard under the stairs-the Walls-destroy the enemy-deep aching hunger-anger-sadness-pleasure-pain-and **RAGE** -)

 

_What. Is. This. Boy._

 

Severus retreats from the boy's (monster's) mind as quickly as possible, nearly stumbling out of his seat at the Head Table in shock and alarm.

 

"This _is_ Harry Potter," he concludes with a touch of hysteria. "Our Savior."

 

And then, bitterly.

 

"Merlin help us".


	2. Identity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...about broken memories; about reality, that feels like a dream, and dreams, that feel like reality.

For a long time a boy living in a cupboard under the stairs isn't quite sure what his name really is - whether it is Harry, or a boy, or a freak, or Eren. His memories are a disjointed jumble of broken glass, and its sharp edges can never fully fit together.

 

He remembers clearly the sad and miserable years, spent with his aunt, uncle and cousin. Remembers screaming matches about his freakishness, constant hunger, constant fights to get out of this house, this town and this family, that grew more and more brutal, the older he got. Remembers (strangely familiar) fear in his aunt and uncle’s eyes every time they looked at him, hushed whispers, that always followed him in the neighborhood, pinched look on aunt Petunia’s face, when he asked about his parents.

 

They told him they were drunks that died in a car crash - but something in him violently rebels at that thought.

 

From time to time he dreams about beautiful woman with red hair, shielding him with her body from someone else, someone unpleasant and dangerous, with a high-pitched laugh and cruel eyes ( _not Harry, please, take me instead_ ). Sometimes he thinks she was his mother. (But something is still not right, because he could swear his mother had brown hair and warm hazel eyes, but when he tries to remember what happened to her, his chest tightens with pain, and something dark and foreboding tries to rise from the depth of his mind, and in the end may be he doesn't want to know after all).

 

And then there are dreams, that don't feel like dreams.

 

About living in a strange medieval city, surrounded by high walls ( _prison_ – his mind whispers to him, just like his cupboard, and he _hates_ them then with a single-minded intensity, because somewhere deep in his heart he _knows_ that humans were not meant to be restricted).

 

About a smart blond boy ( _Armin, read me your grandfather’s book about the sea again_ ) and quiet, but strong and fiercely protective of him dark-haired girl ( _Mikasa, stop babying me, I’m not a child_ ). And on days like this waking up in the morning is a chore, because their warm laughter is still ringing in his ears along with aunt Petunia’s call to “get-started-on-breakfast-already-you-lazy-boy”. (On days like this he isn’t sure he wants to wake up at all).

 

But not all of these dreams are pleasant. More often than not, he is plagued by nightmares – nightmares about blood and death, and gore, and people dropping like flies all around him, being torn apart, chewed upon, swallowed whole. Nightmares about _titans_.

 

On days like this he wakes up drenched in sweat, shaking from head to toe with an animalistic hatred so deep and vast, that he almost drowns in it, filled with obsessive urge to fight (because flight isn’t an option), to kill ( _kill them all_ ), to obliterate _every single one of them_ (with his blades, with his fists, with his _teeth_ ).

 

Problem is titans don’t seem to exist anymore.


	3. Of monsters and men

He makes a mistake of asking his aunt about titans once. It goes as well, as expected – which means, he ends up getting locked in a cupboard for the duration of the next week, not a single step closer to having an actual answer.

 

Because no matter how many times he sneaks into the living room, while his uncle is watching the news, no one ever mentions giant man-eating monsters. History books in school’s library say nothing about Walls (except for the Chinese Wall, but even that is not high enough).

 

It is strange and wrong, and-

 

This whole world is strange, wrong, and terrifyingly _unfamiliar_. There is technology, the workings of which he can’t even begin to understand and will probably never be comfortable around. There are all kind of books – about seas, and oceans, and deserts, and mountains (he slips a National Geographic magazine from the library to his cupboard once and leafs through it long into the night, marveling at all beautiful pictures of different places around the world, silently vowing to travel to all of them someday). There are planes that could fly you to the other side of the world in a matter of hours. There are skyscrapers, some of which are two, three times higher than Walls.

 

But the most disturbing revelation he gets is upon the discovery of wars. There are wars, he learns, and people fighting not just some external treat for the survival of their race, but with _each other_ , and that nearly sends him into shock, because he just _doesn’t understand_ , can’t wrap his head around it and, honestly, doesn’t _want_ to. The concept of hundreds, thousands, millions of people dying because of _differences in opinion_ is repulsing to the point of nausea to him and utterly _foreign_.

 

(Everything is foreign here).

 

All of it makes him doubt himself, his memories and his sanity, eats him from inside out slowly, but surely, drives him insane. (Because most of the time he is not even sure, whether he is Harry Potter, dreaming of being Eren Jaeger, or Eren Jaeger, dreaming of being Harry Potter – and it is _terrifying_.)

 

He doesn’t know what to do, what to think, whom to fight. And so – he waits.

 

Waits for a long time ( _year after year after year_ ) for something, _anything_ to happen – for Armin to suddenly wake him up with a smile and a promise of a new story. For Mikasa to silently fall into step with him on the way to school. For a giant hand to peel off their rooftop and for a reeking greedy maw to sink its teeth into the screaming, crying, pleading bodies of his relatives. (Sometimes it scares him, how the last image makes him feel almost _hopeful_ ).

 

But nothing ever does.

 

He is tired and lost, and confused, and so, so _angry_.

 

When his uncle breaks his arm one day for turning up on the school’s roof with some “freakish display of _freakishness_ ” (and how did _that_ happen?), he is almost relieved. Because this is violence, pure and simple, and Harry (or is it Eren?) knows exactly how to deal with violence – to hit back twice as hard.

 

(The back of his uncle’s neck looks particularly inviting).

 

That night he dreams about knives, about the sound they make, slicing through meat and bones, about monsters, wearing human flesh, and Mikasa’s empty broken eyes ( _you can’t win if you don’t fight)_. He wakes up to the taste of blood in his mouth, accompanied by a curious set of marks on his hand, and to a grim ( _satisfied_ ) realization, that even if titans don’t exist anymore, monsters - monsters are _universal_.

 

(-and he will exterminate them _all_.)


	4. About loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short, but the image just won't go away, so I decided to get it out of my system.

When he is ten, he learns about love.

 

He dreams of gentle fingers running through his hair, low sensual murmur, whispering something excitingly filthy in his ear ( _bend over, you shitty brat, and prepare yourself for me, I want to watch_ ). He dreams of wet kisses upon his back, of hands on his hips – firm, steady and male; their touch burns him, but it is a good pain, and he can’t get enough of it. He dreams of heavy-lidded dark grey eyes, thin lips and pale snowy skin, riddled with scars new and old.

 

(Something like lava runs through his veins instead of blood, something like desperation, or lust, or heartbreak. Something like love.)

 

He wakes up to his cupboard under the stairs, and his name is still Harry (when he was eight he finally decided to just call himself Harry – it helps to avoid confusion), he is still only ten (awkward limbs, squeaky voice, thin as a stick), and the world around him is still too vast to properly comprehend.

 

He closes his eyes, still feeling the phantom touches of his ( _not his not his not anymore_ ) lover, curls into a ball and _cries_ , sobs like a child ( _and he is now, isn’t he?_ ) into his dirty pillow for a different life he may or may not have lived once upon a time, and for a man with gentle hands and steely eyes.

 

(That day he learns about loss).


	5. The freak show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...about sea and guilt, and giant creepily smiling man.

It’s kind of funny and sad at the same time that the first time he gets the chance to see an ocean is during a mad summer chase through the countryside in a futile effort to outrun the owls bringing frankly ridiculous amount of letters.

 

He is not even sure, if it is really an ocean, or a sea – their difference in size just an empty number for him without any actual meaning. But whatever it really is, it fits the description Armin once recounted to him in a breathless voice full of wonder perfectly.

 

It is enormous. It is beautiful. It is wild.

 

He never imagined, that something like this – this shrieking, howling wind, the crash of waves upon the rocky shore, the rumbling thunder, this epitome of nature’s violence unrestrained - could ever exist. (Something is rising from the darkest depth of his soul, struggling to get out and howl its fury for all the world to hear; something equally wild and hungry and _vicious_ ).

 

He is completely and utterly _enamored_.

 

It takes his aunt, muttering about ungrateful brats under her breath and dragging him to a shabby little shack by force, to wake him up from an astonished daze.

 

It takes a giant, hairy, creepily smiling man to banish all thoughts about sea from his mind altogether. Instead he almost goes for his knives, (creepy smile-jaws opened wide-teeth, covered in human blood-kill it-kill it- _kill it_ ), realizing at last moment, that no, it’s not a titan, just a very big human.

 

(He is not disappointed. He is _not_.)

 

(“You have your mother’s eyes” says the man – Hagrid - and then stops short after getting a closer look.)

 

That day he discovers the differences between humans, monsters and freaks. Surprisingly, he prefers the word “freaks” to “wizards and witches”. Mostly because this whole magic business with their dark lords and secrecy and “Albus-Dumbledore-such-a-great-man” and, well, _magic_ reminds him disturbingly of children’s fairytales. It tastes suspiciously sour in his mouth. (He stopped believing in fairytales and happy endings a long, long time ago, when the Wall Maria was breached and his mother – and _no_ , no, no, stop, don’t think about it, _don’t think about it_ ).

 

He doesn’t like that his perception of the world is changing _again_. He doesn’t like that there is literally no time to adjust, and his aunt is screaming at him something about her sister, “always-perfect-Lily”, about his uncle, who “would have whipped this magic out of you boy, he would have”, and “this is your fault that he is dead, everyone’s dying around you”.

 

She doesn’t know, how _right_ she is ( _everyone’s dying around you_ ), and he doesn’t really know how to deal with it, never knew how to deal with guilt, survival or otherwise. (These days every time he closes his eyes, someone’s dying some kind of horrible, gruesome death – because he wasn’t fast enough, or strong enough, or smart enough. He stopped vomiting upon waking up years ago).

 

But then again, may be he does deserve it. He thinks of his uncle then ( _this is your fault that he is dead_ ), and smiles, because in this particular case he has absolutely nothing to feel guilty for. (Because that particular monster will never bother anyone ever again).


	6. What a beautiful day

No matter, how many times he have already seen this, it still surprises him – the sheer amount of blood that human body contains.

 

His uncle, thought, all bend up out of shape and awkward, laying motionless on a sidewalk of a busy London street, gray matter slowly seeping out of his cracked up scull, doesn’t look like a human. He looks like a butchered pig.

 

The dented car is sprayed with red and the driver, young man in his twenties, can’t seem to tear his eyes from the body, oddly fascinated. Petunia is screeching with horror, white as sheet, looking ready to faint. At least, Dudley is not here – not matter what kind of brat he is, kid doesn’t deserve the front-line seat of the “how-my-pig-of-a-father-died” movie.

 

(He thought that he will feel pleased about his uncle’s death, maybe even vindictively satisfied, but at the end of the day all he really feels is – old and tired. The job is done, he feels.)

 

Is it strange to feel so young and old at the same time, he wonders later that day, mechanically washing dishes and listening to the news report on a TV with half an ear (even after all these years he still waits for the reports about giant humanoid monsters to pop up).

 

Then again, most of the time he’s not really sure, just how old he actually is. The dreams are not helping. Sometimes he dreams of being young (naïve, hopeful, such a goddamn little idiot), sometimes he dreams of being a teenager (yes, Corporal Rivaille, right away, Corporal Rivaille, touch me, please, Corporal Rivaille). Sometimes he dreams of being ageless, hungry, giant monster full of rage ( _humans are tiny under his feet, tiny and insignificant_ ).

 

Everything is different, when he dreams of being a titan. The colors are sharper and somehow deeper, more meaningful – especially the yellows (he can suddenly distinguish a hundred different hues to the sunlight) the reds (it speaks of blood and chase and survival of the fittest). His thoughts are slow and heavy, like in a dream within a dream, and doesn’t really matter, because all that is really required for action is already instinctive ( _-to hunt his prey-to tear it’s flesh with hands and teeth-to consume it’s life-to-exterminate-_ ).

 

He knows he cannot turn into a titan anymore (and may be it’s for the best, because Corporal Rivaille is not here anymore to dispose of him if he ever goes on a rampage). He knows it (he _tried_ ). But sometimes, when the deep, all-consuming rage (that never left him, _not really_ ; it’s always shimmering just beneath the surface) clouds his mind, it feels like nothing’s changed.

 

It feels like colors and scents and movements in the corner of his eye speak to him about life and death. It fells like with a single thought he can bent reality, twist it and wrap around his finger. It feels like someone is screaming inside his head ( _inside the light-bolt scar on his forehead_ ), being slowly eaten alive, bit by agonizing bit.

 

In these moments windows are trembling, light bulbs are exploding in a shower of glass all around the house and the furniture is flying. In these moments humans are tiny, insignificant and so easily _breakable_ (and the line between dream and reality, between human and titan, between _Harry and Eren_ is almost nonexistent).

 

It is so very easy then to _will_ his uncle on the path of an upcoming vehicle.

 

(Between monsters and freaks he knows _perfectly_ , which category he really belongs to. Because freaks may be unnatural, but monsters... Monsters are _inhuman_. And he long ago stopped caring about his humanity, because, as Armin once said, nothing worthwhile could be gained without sacrifice.)


	7. Humanity’s Last Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...about fame and all the ways it breaks you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My amazing, wonderful readers, please, if you see any mistakes (any at all) - report them. I don't have a beta (quality English-speakers are kinda rare where I live), so I'm relying on you here. By the way, if anyone wants to volunteer for the beta position, it would be awesome!

****

Countless eyes, following his every move from Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley, don’t bother him. Neither do the whispers, full of undisguised awe and full-blown hero worship. (“Look at that kid, isn’t he Harry Potter?”, “Did you see the scar?”, “Mommy, why doesn’t he wear glasses, like in my storybook?”) Honestly, he is _used_ to it (remembers with perfect clarity, that he could never go out of Survey Corps Headquarters without some kind of crowd – angry more often than not – forming around him almost instantly).

 

What _does_ bother him is the name-calling.

 

Savior of the Wizarding World, they call him. The Boy-Who-Lived.

 

He is not sure whether to laugh or to cry (or to go for the knives – because _that_ is his first, primal response for any kind of stress, and if being thrown headfirst into a whirlpool of _crazy_ isn’t stressful, he doesn’t know what is).

 

Maybe in another time, in another _world_ , where he was just some ordinary eleven year old without memories of ancient war invading his dreams, he would have been overjoyed to receive such warm welcome to the world of magic. He would have been enthusiastic, probably even grateful for a chance at a new, happier life, full of sunshine and miracles (and isn’t it curious that such a startling contrast could exist between the life with his relatives and the magical world, where everyone wants to see his scar and shake his hand).

 

He knows _intimately_ , thought, how fickle public opinion really is. How fast it could turn from adoration to scorn to outright hatred and then back to adoration again. How easy it is to loose your sense of self amongst of all the expectations thousand different people put upon you, some of them – mutually exclusive. How easy it is to break your back, trying to satisfy all of them, only to realize in the end that it’s impossible, and be discarded, when your usefulness finally runs out.

 

(He is not bitter. He _is not_.)

 

Once upon a time he willingly bore the heavy burden of being humanity’s last hope (and look where it led him). He doesn’t want to anymore. (There is no Armin, or Mikasa, or Corporal Rivaille to make it worth it).

 

Absentmindedly patting some stranger’s shoulder, smiling benevolently to some stranger’s face, he knows with a deep-seeded, unshakable certainty, born from experience, that all it would take is one misstep for all these people to turn their backs on him.

 

(Sometimes he wonders, why he doesn’t remember his – Eren’s - death. Years later, when the memory finally comes to him, he wishes to forget it all over again.)


	8. Face to face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First impressions.

****

Hagrid’s first impression of Harry Potter is that he came at a wrong address (no matter how hard he tries, he could see neither James, nor Lily in the boy’s features). His second – is that Harry grew up to be a quiet, introspective, thoughtful child in contrast to his boisterous father and fiery tempered mother. Nevertheless, half-giant quickly finds himself genuinely liking the kid, and not just because he was friends with his parents. (It’s not that strange, when Hagrid’s borderline fanatical fascination with all kinds of dangerous monsters is taken into consideration, but for a long time no one can draw the right parallels.)

 

Harry’s first impression of his new owl is that she is _hiding something_. The fault probably lies in her eyes – cunning, predatory and intelligent (like his own).  For awhile he toys with the idea to name her after some kind of local (to _this_ world) goddess of hunt or something, but in the end decides against it. He calls her Annie instead (and silently laughs every time she turns away from him in disdain, ruffling her feathers). Later someone asks him why he gave his magnificent white owl such a plan name and he just smiles and answers, that she is named in honor of an old friend. ( _I will take care of you this time, Annie_ , he thinks, gently cleaning the blood of some unfortunate animal from her beak after she flies into his room that night. It probably isn’t healthy or altogether sane, but he just doesn’t care anymore.)

 

Draco Malfoy’s first impression of Harry Potter is that the boy is _strange_. He is not quite sure, if it’s a _good_ strange or a _bad_ strange yet. Probably bad, he decides, after thinking about his encounter with an aforementioned celebrity in Madam Malkin’s shop some more. Potter didn’t even recognize his family name, like some kind of mudblood, fancy that! Unthinkable. _Everyone_ knows Malfoys. And then, after Draco took pity on him and graciously explained in a few subtle hints his family’s superiority and the wonders of Slytherin House versus all of the others, the boy had the gall to laugh at him and muss his hair. Like he was a little kid that needed to be placated. No one musses Malfoy’s heir and gets away with it!

 

Goblins first impression of the famous Boy-Who-Lived is that he is to be avoided. At all cost. They are a race of warriors, but every goblin knows not to mistake a healthy caution in the face of an overwhelming treat with cowardice, and _oh_ , the Boy-Who-Lived is a treat to everyone who crosses his pass no matter the intentions of a trespasser, there’s no mistake about it. His gait and manners are far too confident for a mere child, who only reached his eleventh spring, eyes are far too knowing, but it is his _smell_ , that has every goblin in the vicinity stand at attention. The smell of a critically wounded predator, which has nothing left to lose. The smell of a beast half-mad with pain, which trots precariously upon a dangerously thin thread above the dark waters of insanity, where one wrong move could send him falling. They don’t know why he wears a face of a human child and they don’t care. Mostly, goblins are just glad, that they won’t be there when that deceptive face would finally crack.

 

Ollivander’s first impression of Harry Potter’s wand is that it is _unexpected_. Fourteen inches, grayed maple and banshee’s hair, it waited for it’s wielder for more, than two hundred years, and until this day Garrick Ollivander had his doubts, that this wand would find its match during the course of his lifetime. Made on a whim in the early days of his own apprenticeship, it has a character, hardly compatible with your everyday eleven year old wizard – too stiff, too unusual, too dark. Because grayed maple stands for traveling, for spirit, for rebirth (and not in a good way, like holy or even yew – after all, to be reborn, something needs to die first), as for banshee’s hair… Well. Banshees cry for the damned, enough said. When he tells all this to his new customer, solemn and serious, the boy doesn’t look surprised. Caressing his wand carefully, cautiously, the boy looks - above all - resigned. (And isn’t that _curious_?)


	9. The things we miss

Magic, as Harry soon discovers after visiting Diagon-Alley, is _complicated_. Apparently, to wield it properly some kind of a special stick, that possesses its own consciousness (after all, it is a _wand_ , that chooses a wizard), is needed.

 

(Upon the first touch of his fingers to a polished grayed wood of his wand, a terrible, beautiful cry, full of naked grief, pierces the silence. Harry feels, as if _something_ inside of him wakes up from a deep slumber, slowly lifting its heavy eyelids up and taking a curious glance at the world from the back of his eyes. Something dark, and heavy, and positively _ancient_. For the first time he feels _whole_ , as if some piece of him, that was always missing, finally clicked back in place.)

 

He brings home a lot of books about all kinds of magic. And they are filled to a brim with big words, complicated sentences and difficult terminology. He may have an experience of a much older Eren-from-the-dreams to draw upon, but it mainly consists of fighting for his life and sanity, and doesn’t actually help him to understand his books any better. It was always more Armin’s forte than his.

 

Harry _wills_ for a lock on a door to his room to close. The glass in a window trembles a little and table rattles, but after a few seconds the lock finally slides in place. He starts to suspect, that even for crazy wizards he might be too different, too unusual, too strange. (He hopes, that it won’t translate into “too dangerous” because he knows only too well, what happens to those unfortunate enough to be slapped with the label. When fear comes into equation the public quickly forgets the meaning of “justice” or “fair”.)

 

But still, to his complete surprise, magic has proven to be awesome. The possibilities for what it can accomplish are literally endless and, despite everything, he is excited to learn more (he tries not to think about how the war with titans would have turned out if they had magic at their disposal).

 

Yes, magic is awesome. Magical society, thought – not so much. “The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts” lays open on his bed, tossed carelessly aside, pages crumpled. The words “terrible war”, “great losses” and “the most powerful Dark Lord in a century” mock him silently. Harry tries not to judge them too harsh (because death is death and war is war – it still hurts people no matter the country, the species or even the world). He tries to understand, pouring over history books, reading about witch trials and blood purity and the State of Secrecy. By God, he tries.

 

But then he remembers.

 

Remembers what it was really like to fight for the survival of your race. Remembers the blissful ignorance of the masses, and then – suffocating despair, hanging upon everyone like a cloud, instantly choking down any hope for the future. (Because there was no future to be had).

 

Remembers waking up every morning with the same thought - _someone is going to die today_.

 

Because he knows war, he has lived with war, like other people live with a lover, (doesn’t know how to live _without_ it anymore, really). War runs through his veins instead of blood. And this _thing_ , that Wizarding world still haven’t completely recovered from even after ten years of piece – it is _not_ a war.

 

(And he never thought he could _ever_ possibly miss it).


	10. Kindergarten

The kids are annoying. And noisy. And _annoying_.

 

Harry knew all of this before, of course, but, as it turns out, he isn’t actually prepared to deal with them. They scream, and laugh, and fidget, and ask invasive questions, and have no notion of personal space _whatsoever_ , and…

 

And Harry desperately wants to wring their scrawny necks. _All of them_.

 

There is a carrot-haired boy, who stares at him adoringly and keeps trying to touch him (and Harry keeps trying not to react with violence, because no matter what kind of different life he dreams of, in _this_ life another person’s touch has never meant anything good). There is a bushy-haired girl, hyperactive and condescending in a way Armin never was, and absolutely sure that she knows about him more that he does about himself. Then there is little Malfoy, all blond and sleek and dolled up, with depreciatory judgment about anything and everything clearly broadcasted through every word and gesture – he reminds Harry of Jean so much, it’s painful. But while Jean may have been thoughtless and antagonizing, he was never this deliberately cruel.

 

There are children’s faces at every corner of the train from the age of eleven to eighteen, peering at him unashamedly – curious, carefree. Aggravating.

 

Harry feels like he is drowning.

 

He sits still during the eight hours it takes for Hogwarts Express to reach its destination, hardly moving at all, and keeps taking deep calming breathes every five minutes. (Who would have thought that he of all people will reach anything even resembling proficiency in _meditation techniques_? Corporal Rivaille would have been so proud.) But his magic is rolling under his skin restlessly; a rumbling, seething mass of greedy fire, begging to be let out to wreck havoc on unsuspecting audience. It is the same and simultaneously very different from when he was learning how to control his titan form.

 

For one, he always perceived his inner titan as a foreign entity having a separate intelligence - it was a different being, caged tightly inside of him, all made up of endless rage and alien (not human, never human) instincts.

 

Magic is something else entirely.

 

There is nothing foreign about it. It is an extension of his self. It is comfortable and familiar in a way that his titan form never was.

 

(Wasn’t it?)

 

It should bother him, that an _extension of his self_ is so destructive by its very nature. Almost corrosive (like an angry, hungry _beast_ ). It should bother him.

 

It _doesn’t_.


	11. Something wicked

The castle feels _strange_.

 

It feels like Walls. Like battlefield turned into graveyard. Like ancient bones, buried under the stone, grinded to dust millennium ago; like earth, seeped in the blood of thousands; like magic – deep and old, and heavy.

 

It feels (disturbingly) like home.

 

The sensation is reinforced by the man, sitting at the head of a teacher’s table. This man is old; his beard is white and long and tangled, his clothes - odd. There is an aged wisdom to him, amicable and somehow peaceful. But he sits in his chair, like a king sits on a throne – powerful and self-assured. And his eyes, filled with joy, compassion and kindness, are the eyes of a man with a mission. Of a man with a purpose much bigger and greater than him.

 

Commander Pixis had the same gentle laughing eyes. Commander Pixis, who regularly gambled with countless lives. Who sacrificed hundreds and was prepared to sacrifice much more. Who used him shamelessly as a weapon again and again, and didn’t even try to hide what will happen to him when his usefulness finally runs out.

 

For such man, Harry knows, the end justifies the means.

 

(He doesn’t know the phrase “for the greater good” yet. But he will. Oh yes, he will.)

 

He wants to open his jaws (full of bloodied, broken teeth) wide and eat his face off, swallow his meat, crunch on his bones. To transform and to rage, like a beast he (sometimes) is. Because some other time some other world a man like that would have been a great ally, but here and now Harry knows –  he will never let himself be used like that again, be broken apart and then put together anew with sharper, finely honed edges and dangerous, singe-minded loyalty to the cause.

 

There is no cause anymore, and Harry understands, that right now he is nothing more than a blade without the guiding hand, formidable, but ultimately almost worthless, because the enemy – the enemy is not here. And it would be so easy to let himself be led again by the man with the vision, the man with the purpose, even if that purpose is just as foreign as this whole new world (where people kill each other because of color of their skin, or money, or _blood_ ).

 

So easy – and so meaningless. _Weak_.

 

…Never again (it is imprinted in his soul with scars and burns, that his weakness means deaths upon deaths of other people – his people).

 

That’s how Harry knows instantly, instinctively, that this old, joyful, gentle face is the face of an enemy.

 

(And how he misses the days when the face of the enemy was never _ever_ in question).


	12. Voices in your head

 “Oh my” says the Sorting Hat inside his mind. “Oh my. Well then, hello, Harry Potter. Or is it Eren Yeager?”

 

Harry doesn’t have any previous experience with someone other than him talking inside his head, so he doesn’t freak out too bad. Still, his poisonous magic stirs, agitated, ready to destroy anything, standing in his path, and the broken edges of his mind instantly turn sharp, just as ready to slice and tear apart an unwelcome intruder. Life and dreams long ago taught him, that unknown doesn’t mean harmless, it just means you don’t know for sure where to strike to kill it dead (thought the back of one’s neck is always a good choice).

 

“Now, now, young man, there’s no need for such drastic measures” a nervous voice of the Sorting Hat interrupts his musing. “I can do you no harm; numerous enchantments, placed upon me by Godric Gryffindor himself, prevent that! Neither can I share any knowledge, gleaned from your mind, with anyone else. My only purpose is to sort children into the house best suited for them.”

 

Harry’s mind is blank. He doesn’t trust the thing completely, but he’s always been able to tell if someone was lying before, and his gut tells him, that the Hat doesn’t lie. (It’s all in the scent, that is not really a scent, but more of a _feeling_ – that rotten sour note, that clogs his nose and turns his stomach, whenever Aunt Petunia starts talking about the car crash, that killed his parents or when Dudley cries about teachers at school being mean to him. The feeling he gets from the Hat is somehow fresh and dusty at the same time, but there is no sourness, so Harry will trust it. For now.)

 

“But herein lies the problem” it continues. “For children’s mind are often simple, young and whole. And yours is neither of those things. Even I can’t go deeper, than the surface for fear of being either shredded to bits, lost forever among the sea of broken reflections, or, Merlin forbid, _digested_. So, what do you propose I do with you, young man, hmm?”

 

“I don’t care” – Harry answers with irritation; the hush of anticipation, that fallen over the Great Hall, getting on his last nerve. “Put me where the chances of my survival are highest”.

 

“Oh, it’s not your survival I’m concerned with” blithely retorts the Hat. “It’s the other students. For you, my dear, is a wolf amongst the sheep, and sooner or later someone’s bound to get eaten.”

 

(- _crunch of bones on his teeth-the rush of blood down his throat_ -)

 

“Ravenclaw is definitely not for you” hurries the Hat, its voice high and stressed. “So is Hufflepuff – you may be absurdly loyal and hardworking, but badgers also value teamwork, and I just don’t see you willingly working with anybody. Slytherin… You have the right potential for Slytherin, oh yes, at least in the ambitions department, but I’m afraid you will slaughter them all within a week, so that leaves us with…”

 

Red and gold, thinks Harry. Blood and sunlight. How weirdly appropriate.

 

“GRYFFINDOR!”

 

The Great Hall bursts into applause, students with red and gold ties hollering in joy and chanting something victorious.

 

Albus Dumbledore strokes his beard, humming in satisfaction, because everything is going according to the plan. Severus Snape closes his eyes and sags boneless in his seat, relieved, because at least the boy will not be his problem to deal with, and hopes that no one notices his hands shaking. Quirinus Quirrell whimpers in pain, while the Dark Lord at the back of his head rages to spill the blood of a little boy.   

 

None of them knows it yet, but from now on nothing will ever go according to the plan.

 

Monsters, which know it and flaunt it; monsters, which hide their nature behind the shields of justification and dubious morality; monsters, which dress themselves in human flesh and feed upon the weak. All of them will fall in time - one by one.

 

(-and-I-will-kill-them- _all_ -)


	13. The one who sleeps

Harry wakes up (or does he?) and lies still for a long time. Breathing in, breathing out. The rush of almost-flying with 3DMG, the sound of heavy footsteps closing in, Levi’s grim face, his white skin splashed with rapidly vanishing titan blood, the screams of some unfortunate sod getting torn in two – gradually fades.

 

The dorm is quiet. Peaceful. _Jarring_.

 

His left arm, which was in the process of being chewed off just few minutes ago, is there again. It is not unblemished either – there are scars on his knuckles from some long sessions of venting aggression on the back of a tree in the schools’ backyard. The concept of scars that stay on his body and don’t vanish after five minutes is still new and fascinating. Harry even thought of adding something deliberate, but he doesn’t know all of the limits of this body and doesn’t want to accidentally damage it irreparably.

 

Traditional morning stretches calm him down a little; help him to re-familiarize himself with his eleven-year-old height, with the length of his arms and legs, with the strength of his grip. He probably won’t be actually able to function without them – Harry lost count to the number of times he overstepped while walking down the stairs after the night full of dreams of being higher than 4 foot, or the number of cups broken after dreams of being able to squash a human to paste in his giant fist.

 

Since the magical world barged itself into his already confusing life and made everything even more complicated, he feels the line between waking world and dreams blurring more and more, and it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what is real and what is not. With introduction of magic the shaky ground he stood upon quickly became quicksand – and he is drowning.

 

People were already almost two-dimensional, simple and easy to predict in their actions and reactions before (Aunt Petunia always screamed, when he messed up her garden, Dudley always cried, when something did not go his way, other kids always shrank back in fear, when Harry glared at them), but now… Now they are faded human-shaped shadows, easily dismissed into the background the moment Harry stops paying attention. Their faces and voices blend together in Harry’s mind, distinguishable only due to different colors of their ties and the level of annoyance their presence inflicts upon his person (kids with red and gold ties are more annoying than others, even if only due to their close proximity to him, but the redheaded boy, always asking questions about his scar or invading his personal space, is _especially_ talented in this department).

 

Harry doesn’t have any idea about what is real and what is not anymore – he never really learned how to deal with sudden changes without tipping into the soul-consuming rage (because those changes always signified upcoming blood and death and violence before). It was easier in the muggle world, because _everything_ was different there from kitchen appliances and methods of transportation to the world history. But this castle… This castle feels like _home_ (-the Wall crumbling under the cruel grip of a giant hand - broken bodies on the streets – _mother’s screa_ -), and Harry keeps tripping over the ghosts that only he can see, wading day after day through the fog, sleepless, borderline delirious, keeping the last string of his boiling temper from snapping with sheer bullheaded stubbornness.

 

And then the door to the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom opens. Quirinus Quirrell meets his gaze. Stops. Inhales. Splutters.

 

(His eyes are terrified; his are the eyes of a man without hope, the man in the jaws of a monster, still struggling out of habit and instinct, but knowing that the end is near. Only his monster is not a carnivorous titan made of sunlight, it is something far more insidious, something eating his life and mind and willpower from inside out, lapping his brain matter greedily from his skull. That man is already halfway down to falling apart at the seams; there is no saving him from the dark shadow, hiding behind his eyes.)

 

And the world suddenly comes into focus, sharp and beautiful. _Real_.

 

(Harry knows, that there is a cold place at the heart of him, cold and sharp and lonely, that even Mikasa and Armin could never connect with. Only Corporal Reveille could touch it, could light him up with purpose. Him and _monsters_.)

 

_\- I'm the one who sleeps; and in the depth herein_

_Lay all His names, unspeakable, unkind:_

_And you, you're a weak reflection of a dream,_

_That’s running through the bottom of His mind._

(Nickolay Gumilev, 1919.

Translation made by me, so - sorry if it is no good).


	14. We’re all mad here

There is a troll in a girls’ bathroom.

 

The creature is a little short, its face is not smiling and it probably won’t regenerate a lost limb in a matter of minutes, but it is _beautiful_ to Harry.

 

Girl with the bushy hair screams, standing in the corner of the bathroom completely petrified, not even trying to dodge the flying debris (-stupid girl, what the hell is she standing still for – just a child, doesn’t know better – _civilian_ -), troll waves his cub around, roaring in challenge ( _they_ never did have cubs), and Harry takes out his knives and jumps into the air.

 

He absently wishes for his 3d maneuver gear, even though its usefulness in such a close quarters is questionable at best (and it doesn’t exist anymore - or maybe never existed at all). He also wishes for his blades – heavy, wide and sharp; missing their reassuring weigh, missing the sharp bite of leather from straps, missing the hiss of compressed gas as hooks hit the air. But none of it matters when there is a giant man-shaped beast for him to slaughter.

 

He read that troll’s hide is impervious to all but the strongest spells and very hard to damage otherwise, but his knives meet no resistance. His magic, his angry, vicious magic, is running out of his hands in a poisonous-green electrical current into the steel alloy, making the metal sharper, the wounds – deeper, the damage – permanent.

 

Harry doesn’t know exactly what kind of expression appears on his face, as he jumps, light and nimble, from the troll’s elbow to its shoulder, rebounding from the wall towards the back of the creature’s neck, all the while carving a bloody path straight through its flesh and bones, but he suspects it is a smile. He is covered in blood, metallic and salty, from head to toe, there are little pieces of torn skin and meat sliding from his hair and the girl in the corner looks much more scared of him, that of the troll. His knives (the ones he stole from Aunt Petunia’s kitchen when he was four; the ones he never lets himself to part from, clutching them in his sweaty grip under the pillow as he sleeps; the ones, that were specifically made to butcher) slice through the muscles and the neck vertebrae without any resistance, nicking the trachea.

 

A strange odor of a burnt meat, heavy and pungent, rises in the air. Harry know that smell (-the bodies, piled upon one another – greedy fire, licking the skin, letting out a black oily smoke – better to burn them, that to let them be eaten-) and he never liked it before, but now it tastes sweet and loving upon his tongue. The troll’s body, that fallen on the ground with muted crash, is jerking, convulsing, like someone stuck an electrical cord straight into its pith and, Harry idly muses, following the green sparks of lightning with his eyes, it may as well be true.

 

Thegirliscrying. Thebeastisdying. Someone is laughing a quiet, happy, giddy laugh.

 

It takes a long moment for Harry to realize, that that person is _him_.


End file.
